Why Does Superman: For Tommorow Get So Much Hate?

[Timothy Hunter]

I am a humungous fan of Brian Azzarello, and like most of his work I really enjoyed Superman: For Tommorow. Firstly, the premise of the story of one million people disappearing, including Superman's wife, Lois Lane, so Superman has to investigate this enigma was an enticing premise. Secondly, I thought the dynamic between Superman and the priest character was very well done. Finally, the storyline just feels very classically 'Superman' in a way while also having a sense of modernity and slickness to it, brought mainly by Jim Lee's artwork.

However, it seems I am in somewhat of the minority. Wikipedia states the storyline received 'mixed' reviews, and I see a lot of scorn and criticism towards this storyline. Why is this? It's not perfect, however I would hardly call "For Tommorow" bad, let alone mediocre.

[HeroVladimir93]

I liked it. I admit I'm not a huge fan of that story or Brian Azzarello, but "For Tomorrow" was at least a serviceable story.

[Kuwagaton]

Disjointed. It couldn't decide if it was an existentialist introspective piece, fight against the physicality of the apocalypse, or paranoid thriller. I mean it sounds amazing on paper to include or maybe even mix all three, but the timing of knowing when to pull which seemed off. And across 12 issues that is just an act you need to have together. I tried re-reading it recently, and I think many will agree that it always felt infinitely better in trade, but I was overwhelmed by Superman being overwhelmed. Sitting there and watching him be sad (drawn by Jim Lee, whose strong suit just isn't that even if it's respectable that he tried something so different) made me put it down and pick up something funnier.

I think what isn't quite fair but doesn't help is that period was just saturated by this kind of story, and they weren't really better than this. So it just didn't feel like an uplifting contribution.

[Yoda]

I liked it, but I think having it come so soon after Hush, which was a crazy tour through Batman's world, and it was sort of marketed as a companion to that given Lee's involvement in both hurt it with fan expectations. And I think having Jim Lee draw a contemplative and not that action packed story with no real familiar rogues hurt it. It always felt like Zod was tacked onto the end.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Brian Azzarello is a great writer, but not always great at writing superhero comics. It's not something I think he has much interest in, yet DC keeps asking him to do it, to predictable results.

[Vordan]

Probably because while it was initially marketed as something akin to Hush i.e. a beginner’s guide to Superman’s world, that’s not what it ended up being. Add in the fact that the main antagonists are a faceless shadow council, a (admittedly cool nonetheless) mercenary, a generic Doomsday clone, and a weird version of Zod it’s not surprising it flopped. Also Azzarelo doesn’t have much interest in straight up superhero stories, which worked out great with Luthor, Joker, and his WW run, but not so well here.

Still I will give it credit for showing an imperfect Superman that does take active precautions against problems rather than merely spouting some line about “we just gotta HOPE harder”. But it wasn’t that well done.

[Stanlos]

There were some things that I liked about it--the Jim Lee art, Superman not bowing to Batman, and the use of Super Intelligence first among them--but reading them as they were published was marred by how decompressed it was. They read much better in Absolute or collected formats.

[Robanker]

Azzarello's characterization felt off, especially given the emphasis on being a down-to-earth farm boy post-crisis. The narrative was disjointed and decompressed. Lee's artwork, at least for me, felt stiff and overall an ill fit for Superman.

Haven't read it in years, I picked it up because it sounded interesting and I was wondering how Lee would do on Superman, but honestly it's just not a Superman story I care for.

Azzarello can write a good story, but superheroes don't seem to be his wheelhouse. I'm struggling to think of a cape story he penned that I enjoyed.

[manofsteel1979]

To be honest ive mellowed towards this story over the years. At the time as it was coming out I was more befuddled by it than anything. I loved the art and some individual moments but the story left me cold and it just seemed to drag on. Eventually I actually grew to actually sort of hate it in the same way I hate "Truth" now...abject nearly irrational white hot hatred actually.

Then someone loaned me the trade and I found that with a few years of distance and the fact it was it's own self contained volume I actually came to appreciate it.Of course this was now during the dark days of the last year or so of the Nuperman era so it definitely helped me realize that in the scheme of things it could have been much much worse.

It eventually occurred to me my distain for For Tomorrow was more about the circumstances surrounding the line as a whole at the time and less the actual story. I was still smarting over DiDio fubaring Superman continuity with the whole Birthright mess and the decision to completely do away with any semblence of week to week continuity between the various Superman books, which is what I had grown use to. Plus the fact Chuck Austin's ACTION was just awful and everything else,I just sort of placed For Tomorrow into the overall context with what I felt was the destruction of the Superman line and the start of a dark decade for the character overall that I sort of blamed that story for something it wasn't responsible for.

There are still things about it that aren't my cup of tea...but on it's own it wasn't bad at all. It sucks as a main saga of the ongoing narrative of the character but as a self contained story, it's pretty decent. It's nice that Azzarello brought back Clark's Super intelligence, I liked some of the new characters and I think Jim Lee's Superman never looked better. There are still Images in that first issue that make my jaw drop when I thumb through the trade.

[Vordan]

To be honest ive mellowed towards this story over the years. At the time as it was coming out I was more befuddled by it than anything. I loved the art and some individual moments but the story left me cold and it just seemed to drag on. Eventually I actually grew to actually sort of hate it in the same way I hate "Truth" now...abject nearly irrational white hot hatred actually.

Then someone loaned me the trade and I found that with a few years of distance and the fact it was it's own self contained volume I actually came to appreciate it.Of course this was now during the dark days of the last year or so of the Nuperman era so it definitely helped me realize that in the scheme of things it could have been much much worse.

It eventually occurred to me my distain for For Tomorrow was more about the circumstances surrounding the line as a whole at the time and less the actual story. I was still smarting over DiDio fubaring Superman continuity with the whole Birthright mess and the decision to completely do away with any semblence of week to week continuity between the various Superman books, which is what I had grown use to. Plus the fact Chuck Austin's ACTION was just awful and everything else,I just sort of placed For Tomorrow into the overall context with what I felt was the destruction of the Superman line and the start of a dark decade for the character overall that I sort of blamed that story for something it wasn't responsible for.

There are still things about it that aren't my cup of tea...but on it's own it wasn't bad at all. It sucks as a main saga of the ongoing narrative of the character but as a self contained story, it's pretty decent. It's nice that Azzarello brought back Clark's Super intelligence, I liked some of the new characters and I think Jim Lee's Superman never looked better. There are still Images in that first issue that make my jaw drop when I thumb through the trade.

It’s so weird that the iconic Lee Superman posing with Metropolis in the background comes from such a forgettable story.

[Kuwagaton]

To be honest ive mellowed towards this story over the years. At the time as it was coming out I was more befuddled by it than anything. I loved the art and some individual moments but the story left me cold and it just seemed to drag on. Eventually I actually grew to actually sort of hate it in the same way I hate "Truth" now...abject nearly irrational white hot hatred actually.

Then someone loaned me the trade and I found that with a few years of distance and the fact it was it's own self contained volume I actually came to appreciate it.Of course this was now during the dark days of the last year or so of the Nuperman era so it definitely helped me realize that in the scheme of things it could have been much much worse.

It eventually occurred to me my distain for For Tomorrow was more about the circumstances surrounding the line as a whole at the time and less the actual story. I was still smarting over DiDio fubaring Superman continuity with the whole Birthright mess and the decision to completely do away with any semblence of week to week continuity between the various Superman books, which is what I had grown use to. Plus the fact Chuck Austin's ACTION was just awful

Timing is a big thing. Removed from the editorial and overall tense indecisiveness from DC at the time, the stories are better able to speak for themselves. If you are into what Bendis is putting down and were willing to give For Tomorrow another chance, I honestly have to recommend giving Austen another chance.

[manofsteel1979]

Timing is a big thing. Removed from the editorial and overall tense indecisiveness from DC at the time, the stories are better able to speak for themselves. If you are into what Bendis is putting down and were willing to give For Tomorrow another chance, I honestly have to recommend giving Austen another chance.

I may do so eventually...but there's just something about Austin's voice for Superman that was just...off. Plus the whole thing about having Lana make a play for an injured and emotionally vulnerable Clark is just creepy...and not to mention the Doomsday stuff. I have to admit the first couple issues weren't completely terrible and having Ivan Reis draw it definitely was a good call. At least there is pretty art to look at.

[Ascended]

For Tomorrow isn't that bad a story. It's got some problems; its disjointed and there are subplots there that dont seem to make sense or fit, the villains are largely forgettable (outside of Mr. Orr) and its a very slow burn of a story, which can make it hard to get through. And in my opinion the totally one-sided fight with Wonder Woman is unforgivable.

But the biggest problem the story has, in my opinion, is that it was different. Most Superman stories are pretty clean cut and the fans expect that sort of black-and-white narrative, where the heroes are heroes, the problems have simple root causes and simple solutions, and the villains wear black hats. but Azz took Clark down a murky road where Clark's his own worst villain. Just like with his Wonder Woman run, Azz comes at Clark from a different perspective and explores some of the flaws, contradictions, and problems in Clark as a character, a hero, and a man....but doesn't make Clark a horrible person or break who his is as a character, and a lot of readers aren't used to seeing Clark's failings put under the spotlight like that.

As ManofSteel said, it also came at a bad time in Superman publishing history and it wasn't the great "Hush-like" story we were expecting it to be. But on its own, For Tomorrow is one of the deepest explorations of Superman's character we've seen in the modern age and it does stuff with Clark we hadn't really seen before without breaking who Superman is as a character. It's got some pretty deep flaws to it, but overall it's a solid, if off-beat, story. At the very least, Azz highlighted Clark's scientific skill and big picture mentality in a way that we hadn't seen much of in that era, and explored Clark's flaws without making him a total d-bag.

[manofsteel1979]

For Tomorrow isn't that bad a story. It's got some problems; its disjointed and there are subplots there that dont seem to make sense or fit, the villains are largely forgettable (outside of Mr. Orr) and its a very slow burn of a story, which can make it hard to get through. And in my opinion the totally one-sided fight with Wonder Woman is unforgivable.

But the biggest problem the story has, in my opinion, is that it was different. Most Superman stories are pretty clean cut and the fans expect that sort of black-and-white narrative, where the heroes are heroes, the problems have simple root causes and simple solutions, and the villains wear black hats. but Azz took Clark down a murky road where Clark's his own worst villain. Just like with his Wonder Woman run, Azz comes at Clark from a different perspective and explores some of the flaws, contradictions, and problems in Clark as a character, a hero, and a man....but doesn't make Clark a horrible person or break who his is as a character, and a lot of readers aren't used to seeing Clark's failings put under the spotlight like that.

As ManofSteel said, it also came at a bad time in Superman publishing history and it wasn't the great "Hush-like" story we were expecting it to be. But on its own, For Tomorrow is one of the deepest explorations of Superman's character we've seen in the modern age and it does stuff with Clark we hadn't really seen before without breaking who Superman is as a character. It's got some pretty deep flaws to it, but overall it's a solid, if off-beat, story. At the very least, Azz highlighted Clark's scientific skill and big picture mentality in a way that we hadn't seen much of in that era, and explored Clark's flaws without making him a total d-bag.

For Tomorrow should have been never put in the monthly books, particularly the main monthly book. It was never meant to be in that format really. The timeline was all screwy and never really was reflected within continuity aside from the destruction of the tesseract Fortress and the establishment of the Aztek Fortress.

It felt like there were almost two competing Superman continuities. There was AOS and ACTION sort of telling stories with the same Superman (even if Rucka and Austin had two completely different takes on Kal's personality and voice) and then you had Superman/For Tomorrow,The Question series and the Lex Luthor miniseries which seemed to be working off a separate continuity. Not to mention that Loeb was still doing his own thing on Superman/Batman and you had one big mess.

I mean they couldn't even decide if Lex was on the run after the events of Superman/Batman:Public Enemies (as was supposed to be the case in AOS and Action) or if he was still free and Lexcorp's CEO ( as it was in the Question mini series and The Azzarello Luthor miniseries ( which were supposed to be happening at the same time as For Tomorrow.)
Also they couldn't decide if things were still working off of Man Of Steel or Birthright in terms of backstory. No wonder that when All Star Superman launched in 2005 people latched onto it so strongly. At least it was a coherent vision for Superman!

With time and distance it all wasn't bad in terms of quality ( maybe aside from Austin's Action but I may have to reread that at some point at Kuwagaton's suggestion) but it was clear no one at the time had a clue what do do with Superman so it was a case of throwing everything at the wall and crossing fingers that something stuck. The closest thing I guess was Rucka's Adventures of Superman run which went on until the Infinite Crisis/One year later relaunch.

[DochaDocha]

There was some huge hype for "For Tomorrow" when it first came out. Issue one of the arc was the best-selling book in all of 2004, selling over 234k copies. In some ways, there was no way the story wouldn't disappoint. At its nadir, sales were about 100k, before getting a little boost for the conclusion.

Personally, I just thought it was dull and unappealing. I was all on the hype train, but by issue 8 or 9 I just didn't care.